


safeguard

by badacts



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, But Not Fraction-Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Gratuitous Russian Mobster Mentions, Humour, M/M, Meet-Cute, Vague Fraction-Era References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 09:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15070361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: It’s possible that Clint is fixated on Stubble and his attractiveness in order to distract himself from his imminent death, but whatever.





	safeguard

There’s a new guy at the bus stop Clint’s first day back.

Clint is going to affectionately refer to him as ‘Stubble’ from now on, because he’s rocking the  _ I’ve been awake for 72 hours and what is a razor anyway _ look. And Clint really does mean rocking it, honestly. Angels clearly carved this guy’s jawline themselves, and the rough-around-the-edges-chic thing does absolutely nothing to disguise it.

It’s possible that Clint is fixated on Stubble and his attractiveness in order to distract himself from his imminent death, but whatever. 

Stubble shows up three minutes after Clint, shoots him a quick glance with a pair of very cool grey eyes, and then settles under the sign to presumably wait for his bus. He looks kind of murdery, but also bored enough that Clint probably isn’t his target. 

Clint’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he nearly leaps out of his skin, and then almost tosses it into the slushy gutter while trying to get it out of his jacket. His hands are shaking, half from nerves and half from the fact that he’s freezing his ass off.

Natasha had offered to drive him today, but he’d waved her off with a grin, and  _ then _ when she’d refused to be waved off he’d gotten serious and told her that he needed to get back on the horse. Her parting shot had included the words ‘ridiculous’ and ‘asshole’, but Clint’s deaf so he can’t be relied upon to hear that kind of slander.

He’s fine. It’s a whole thing. Like, yeah, he definitely had PTSD when he got back from that last godforsaken desert posting and it took him a while to get over that (mostly) and, yes, maybe getting into it with the local mob to the point where they were willing to find him on the street and beat the crap out of him had been a bit of a setback, but he’s definitely fine.

By  _ someone’s _ definition, Clint is absolutely fine. And his black eyes are fading! He’s doing great.

(A little voice in the back of his head which sounds suspiciously like Sam from down at the VA mutters about how he spends too much time reassuring himself he’s fine rather than trying to actually become fine. He ignores it.)

Anyway, it’s not paranoia if Russian mobsters are really out to get you.

He finally manages to get his phone out and unlocked. The text is from Kate, and it’s a picture of Lucky on her couch, legs in the air and mouth open in a goofy grin. Clint blows out a half-annoyed chuckle and replies a series of pink hearts. He’s going to have to resort to something serious to get his own dog back tonight. He could try the truth - that he sleeps a hell of a lot better with Lucky’s weight on the bed with him - but hopefully it won’t get to that point.

His bus sweeps in then, rolling to a stop at the curb. Clint climbs on and breathes a small sigh of relief.

 

* * *

Clint nearly got blown up by an IED once, so it’s kind of ironic that he’s currently having nightmares about a little roadside brawl.

The subconscious is a fucking asshole. Also, there’s a bit of a sense of the inevitability of death, or maybe just the understanding that you could die any day, that you get when you’re active military on tour that you just really don’t get when you’re waiting for a bus back stateside.

He hadn’t expected it. He hadn’t heard them coming. He’d been standing there minding his own business, and the next thing he’d been on his back on the pavement with a boot in his ribs and his hearing aids fizzling out on someone yelling,  _ Hey! _

He startles awake to a wet nose in his face. Lucky isn’t smart enough to know that Clint was dreaming, but he’s definitely smart enough to know that Clint moving around means breakfast is on the way.

“Mutt,” Clint mutters affectionately, pushing him away and rolling him up in the quilt. He’s up before his alarm, but it’s not early enough to be worth trying to sleep again. He stumbles upright in search of coffee, shoving his aids into his ears, nearly eating carpet when the tangle of Lucky-and-blankets follows him off the mattress.

Kate appears in his apartment like she’s following the smell of coffee, her eyes still mostly shut even though she’s dressed for work. Clint even pours her a mug because he’s generous and because he loves her a whole lot.

“Morning,” she says, once she’s three-quarters of the way through it. “Can I borrow the puppy today?”

Clint clutches his chest. He was in the circus, he can do ‘theatrical’ with the best of them. “You’re asking permission now?”

“Well, some asshole gave me a sob story about how he can’t sleep without his dog…”

Clint ignores that. “Aren’t you working?”

“Only for a few hours this morning.” She looks too tired for a kid, and Clint knows the fatigue that comes with knowing there’s not quite enough money coming in but not being able to do much about it.

“You know I can swing you some hours with Nat, right?”

The look that earns is killer. “Yeah, I know you can give me some of yours. And I’m not the one who has to pay to look after a whole building.”

Clint doesn’t have much of an argument, so he just shrugs. “Offer stands. And Lucky’s all yours, I’ll pick him up when I get home.”

“Cool. Don’t get killed at the bus stop,” Kate says and he collects his stuff to leave.

“I won’t. Besides, there’s a new guy, he might help me out. Two on one,” he muses, searching for his wallet. “He does only have one arm though.”

“And you’re deaf,” Kate points out, like she thinks he’s picking on the guy for being disabled or something.

“That doesn’t stop me punchin’ people though.” Clint illustrates this with a corny one-two air-jab. “Nat says it’s all been quiet since, anyhow.”

“You must have scared them off with your ability to get a broken nose really easily,” Kate says, though her mouth quirks with amusement. “By the way, it’s in your back pocket.”

Clint gropes his ass, and finds she’s right - his wallet has been there this whole time. “Aw, man. You couldn’t have said that earlier? I’m gonna be late.”

“I don’t spend enough time staring at your old-man ass to notice earlier!” Kate calls out even as he’s halfway into his coat and out of the door. Clint does not dignify that with a response.

Stubble’s at the bus stop, beanie pulled down to his eyebrows and his hand shoved deep in his pocket. He looks kind of fucked off with the world, but Clint can understand that. It’s too cold to be in a good mood.

Clint continues saying as much out loud, but decides not to. He’s also a little curious about whether Stubble has moved into the area recently, but he doesn’t ask either. He’s happy with silent comradery! And also he doesn’t want to make things  _ incurably _ awkward.

 

* * *

That’s pretty much how things continue. Clint walks to the bus stop, isn’t concussed, takes the bus to work, works all day, takes the bus back, and then goes home to his apartment with his one-eyed disaster dog and sometimes Kate when she wants to share his food. Sometimes he sees other people, like Nat showing up just to point out he could take the subway instead of the bus even though he hates the subway, or some of the guys from the VA for their monthly alcohol-free meet-up. Normal stuff.

That’s up until Stubble is missing one Wednesday morning, anyway. 

In his usual place is the most ridiculously proportioned dude Clint has ever seen, with shoulders so broad he must have to go through doorways side-on. Clint feels a moment of suspicion and then shoves it aside. Anyone wearing a collared shirt probably doesn’t have it out for him.

He catches Clint looking at him, and smiles. It transforms his face from attractive-but-stern to  _ mind-bogglingly hot _ .

Seriously, where were all these hot muscular guys when Clint was getting his ass handed to him at this bus stop? Not that he’s not got muscles, he definitely does, but it was five on one and the odds would have been so much more even with McBeefy here.

Whatever. This guy, all blonde and shiny and good, looks much too put together to be anywhere near Clint, who is wearing sneakers with a hole in one of the toes and a bright purple beanie. Clint misses Stubble - he makes Clint look a) not old-school emo and b) outright friendly by comparison.

The next day Blondie is gone and Stubble is back, and all is right in the world. For some reason, when he relays this to Kate, she just looks amused instead of understanding.

 

* * *

No matter what Natasha says, Clint  _ isn’t _ nosy. 

He’s curious. That’s all it is, and that’s natural - he watched a nature documentary once that was all about how humans work, and curiosity was a big deal. That might have been orangutans, on second thought, but the point basically still stands.

Anyway, now it’s Stubble who has captured his attention, and he would really like to know more. There are lots of reasons for someone to be down a limb, but there’s something in the way he moves and the expressions on his face that reads ‘veteran’ to Clint. So that’s something they have in common, besides the disability.

He could ask. He doesn’t. He catches himself opening his mouth a dozen times to say something, but every time he stops before the words get out. He’s not even entirely sure why.

It’s a perfectly normal Tuesday when Clint is interrupted from absent thoughts of his meals for the day and what he has in the fridge besides beer and some leftover Chinese by pounding footsteps coming towards him.

Clint turns a bit, his right hand reaching for either his phone or the knife in his boot - he hasn’t decided yet - and then realises it’s Stubble, approaching at a flat run. He abruptly slows as he comes up on the bus stop, and then halts in his usual place before bending in half, hand on his knee, to catch his breath.

“...are you alright, bro?” Clint asks, aware that he’s potentially breaking the unspoken ‘we don’t talk to strangers on public transport’ rule even though they’re not actually on the transport yet.

“Fine,” Stubble replies after a moment, straightening up. Flushed from exertion is a good look on him. “Thought I’d miss you.”

“Huh?” says Clint. Maybe he means his bus. Maybe it was a Freudian slip. Maybe Clint should be worried about that instead of abruptly hopeful.

Stubble waves him off, staring off into the distance. Clint really, really wants to pursue that - or maybe just...talk to him in general - but that expression is not inviting so he shuts up instead.

 

* * *

Clint’s job is ostensibly working for Natasha’s private security firm, but a large part of what he actually does is take the free self-defense classes the firm runs after-hours.

He gets a mix of people - mostly women, some young and some older, most not white. The whole thing was Nat’s brainchild, but somehow Clint is the one who runs it even though he’s a well-trained ex-military white dude and should be all rights be the worst fear of some of his students. They get along despite this. Nat says it’s because he looks both sweeter and dumber than he is.

Every second thursday Nat does join them to show everyone first-hand the myriad ways a smaller person can hold their own against someone bigger and stronger than them. This, of course, involves Clint being thrown all around the gym by a tiny redhead looking to blow off the steam built up by working in corporate New York City.

This means the evening ends with Clint lying spreadeagled in the centre of the mats, groaning gently while a bunch of women laugh at him. Story of his life, really.

He’s considering crawling to the locker room when Nat sits down next to him. She says, “Your bruises are looking better.”

“They  _ were _ ,” Clint replies.

“Don’t be a baby,” she says. “I don’t leave bruises.”

“Tell that to my internal organs.”

She rolls her eyes, but she does pat him faux-sympathetically on the shoulder. Clint will take it.

“Tell me about the bus stop guy,” she says. Clint spittakes, which means he nearly chokes on his own saliva. He jerks upright, coughing it out of his lungs.

“Kate,” he rasps eventually. Nat’s silence is confirmation he didn’t need.

She’s examining her nails, unbothered. “He appeared straight after you were attacked.”

“I wasn’t  _ attacked _ ,” Clint protests, even though it’s not true, he just doesn’t like that word. It wasn’t  _ that _ serious. “It’s a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Nat replies.

“Nat, he has  _ one arm _ . I don’t think he’s been standing at the same stop as me every day for the last couple of weeks as part of some kind of convoluted assassination plot.”

“He’s hot, isn’t he,” Nat says. It isn’t actually a question.

“What do you-”

“He’s attractive enough that he’s overcome your paranoia and you’re actually not terrified of him.”

Clint opens his mouth to deny that and then stops, sighing. “You are literally the only human who would make that seem like a bad thing, you know that?”

Nat gives him a level look. “I’m coming tomorrow.”

“You’re - no you are not!”

“I want to meet him.” Her tone says  _ I want to check him out and kill him if I find him wanting. _

“ _ I _ haven’t met him! He’s a hot guy at the same bus stop as me, not my future  _ husband _ .”

“Not with that attitude, he won’t be,” Nat says. She pats him on the shoulder again. “It’ll be fine. Also, you can’t stop me.”

Well, she’s not wrong. “You’re going to regret this. No,  _ I’m _ going to regret this. I’m going to be so full of regret, and it’ll be all your fault.”

“I’m sure I’ll learn to live with that somehow,” she says.

 

* * *

Clint tries to avoid the inevitable by sneaking out of his apartment. This just means that Nat shows up at the bus stop directly. She’s wearing a coat so thick she’s twice her usual width, but Clint knows that doesn’t mean much in terms of her ability to kill a man.

She looks Stubble up and down, and then says, “James Barnes, isn’t it?”

Stubble freezes and gives her such a hard-eyed glare that Clint is momentarily concerned that this is going to turn into a vicious brawl in the middle of the street. “Who’s asking?”

She says something else - Clint takes a moment to recognise it as Russian, which he only knows three words of, all of which are mean names Nat calls him. Stubble clearly knows more, because the suspicion on his face clears, if not the fierceness. He replies in the same language. They go back and forth a few times, and then Nat abruptly turns to Clint.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll see you at work.”

Then she walks off. She’s halfway down the street when Clint yells, “You could drive me!” after her, not that she acknowledges that in any way.

When he turns back, Stubble - well, James Barnes, apparently - is already heading down the street in the opposite direction. “Hey! Barnes!”

He does at least stop. He doesn’t look pleased by the interruption, but that could just be his face.

“I’m sorry about her,” Clint says, hurrying after him. “She’s just protective.”

“It’s fine,” Barnes replies abruptly, and then, “You need it.”

“...excuse me?” Clint splutters.

He gets a hard look for that. “You nearly got broken into pieces by some two-bit Russian punks with a grudge.”

“Well...I didn’t!” He shouldn’t sound so defensive, considering Barnes is dead right. 

“Yeah, pal, you didn’t - because of  _ me _ .” Speaking of defensive - Barnes is looking a bit that way himself. “I don’t even catch a bus, you know that? I live right there,” he points at the apartment building a bit further down the street, “and I had to run out here to stop your dumb ass from getting killed by the most pathetic cousins of the Bratva I’ve ever met, and even then I was nearly too fucking late! So now I stand out here freezing my nuts off most days in case they come back, even though I know I put the fear of Christ and me into them and that they almost certainly won’t come back!”

“...you’re more verbose than you look,” Clint observes, and then jumps forwards with Barnes turns to leave. “Wait!”

Barnes turns back to him slowly, a bit wary and a bit pink-cheeked like he really hadn’t meant to say all that. He’s still gorgeous, and apparently he saved Clint’s life, or maybe just the rest of his bones besides his nose and that one broken rib.

“Thank you,” Clint says, in his most sincere voice. “I’m Clint, by the way.”

“Bucky,” Barnes says after a moment. “And you’re welcome.”

“Seriously,” Clint continues. “That’s, um, I can’t believe you would do that. You really don’t catch a bus?”

“I really don’t want to be trapped in my apartment by a police cordon while they investigate your untimely death,” Bucky replies, though he’s looking a touch more relaxed now.

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Clint says. He adds a little smirk to it, because he may be a disaster of a human but he’s still cute.

“Now I do feel sorry for you,” Bucky says, but he’s smirking too.

Then there’s a rush of noise, and Clint looks up just in time to be able to note, “That’s my bus,” before the bus in question roars off down the street. “Damn.”

There’s a moment of semi-awkward silence, and then Bucky says, “My roommate has a car.”

 

* * *

It turns out that Blondie McMuscles is Bucky's roommate, though his actual name is Steve. Steve is clearly very much in on this whole watching-Clint’s-back thing, because when Bucky lets them into the apartment they share, he grins brilliantly.

He’s opening his mouth to speak when Bucky interrupts, “Steve, this is Clint. Clint, Steve. Steve, Clint just missed his bus, can you give him a ride to work?”

“Oh, that’s,” Clint says, “I can...get an Uber?” Yeah, in his mind’s eye, spending time with Bucky in his roommate’s car had not included said roommate along for the ride.

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t have class until this afternoon,” Steve replies. He’s still smiling, big and broad. “It’s nice to finally meet you, by the way.”

Bucky punches him in the ribs. He tries to make it subtle, but fails miserably. 

Bucky makes Clint take the front passenger seat and he takes the back. On the drive, Clint learns that both Steve and Bucky are vets who’ve been back less than a year, and that Steve is enrolled in a college fine arts program while Bucky hasn’t decided what he wants to do yet. They commiserate over their past postings for a bit while carefully not trying to reveal anything they’re not supposed to say - and Clint is sure they’re both ex-spec-ops, though he’s not dumb enough to ask - and then Clint and Bucky commiserate over being stuck in Landstuhl too.

The trip isn’t long enough, because Clint is disappointed when they pull up in front of the building. He’s late, but that’s Natasha’s fault and as his boss she’s required to excuse him.

Steve and Bucky look at the sign on the building, but Steve’s the one who asks, “You work in private security?”

“...yes?” Clint says.

There’s a long silence. Clint is the one who breaks it. “I was a sniper, you know. A good one.”

“I’m sure,” Steve says, very earnestly.

“So not a hand-to-hand specialist, then,” Bucky says at the same time.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Clint tells him, though not without humour. “Thanks for the ride, Steve. I really appreciate it.”

He pushes himself out of the car, and then looks up when Bucky does the same, his door hanging open between them.

“Sorry. That was kinda offensive,” Bucky says.

“My ego isn’t that fragile,” Clint replies. “Otherwise I’d probably be pretty butthurt over you playing bodyguard for the last couple of weeks.”

“‘Butthurt’,” Bucky echoes. His expression is objectively pretty funny.

“Yeah. But I’m not, so it’s cool,” Clint shrugs. “Thanks again. And, you know, you don’t need to keep hanging out in the cold. Promise I won’t get killed.”

“I know I don’t need to,” Bucky replies. He hangs his arm over the door between them, leaning his body into it, and Clint tries not to notice that they’re of a height in a really nice way. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop.”

“Okay,” Clint replies, like a dumbass. The whole ‘not noticing’ thing isn’t working out so well for him. Also, Bucky smells really good, and he’s looking Clint dead in the eye all serious and protective.

“I hate to interrupt, boys, but this is technically a no parking zone,” Steve says from inside the car. Clint had forgotten he was there.

“Shut up, Stevie,” Bucky replies, which is when Clint leans across to kiss him. It’s just a brief brush of lips, a bit off-centre, and Clint has a moment to experience some impressive pre-regret (the kind that will turn to actual regret when Bucky announces that he’s straight and possibly pushes Clint into traffic) before Bucky’s hand rises to his chin and manoeuvres him so they’re kissing properly.

It’s good. It’s pretty great, actually.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Bucky says, when they break apart. “You’re going to be late.”

“I’m so late,” Clint agrees a touch breathlessly, and kisses him once more before he bolts for the front door of the building.

He struggles to shake the grin for most of the day, but he figures he deserves it. He got beaten up by the Bratva for this.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Convoluted assassination plot,' HAH.
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](http://badacts.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
